in reply to Re^7: language selection via libxml
in thread language selection via libxml

I see. So when I changed the ID values to 'a' and 'b' the only one that worked was the one with single quotes: 
"/language/$language/widget[\@ID='$id']"

[download]
I'm not quite sure what you mean by "a valid identifier cannot start with a digit" - what does 'identifier' refer to?

Replies are listed 'Best First'.
Re^9: language selection via libxml
by choroba (Cardinal) on Jan 20, 2014 at 14:25 UTC
    The reason why 1 cannot be mistaken for an element name is that element names cannot start with digits. Use "a" and "b" with the following XML to see what is matched against what: 
    #!/usr/bin/perl
use warnings;
use strict;

use XML::LibXML;
my $tree = 'XML::LibXML'->load_xml(string => <<'EOT');
<?xml version="1.0"?>
<language>
    <english>
        <widget ID="a">input</widget>
        <widget ID="b">output</widget>
    </english>
    <deutsch>
        <widget ID="b">
          eingabe
          <b>b</b>
        </widget>
        <widget ID="b">ausgabe</widget>
    </deutsch>
</language>
EOT

test('english', 'a');
test('deutsch', 'b');

sub test {
    my ($language,$id) = @_;
    my @result = $tree->findnodes("/language/$language/widget[\@ID=$id
+]");
    print $_->textContent . "\n" for @result;
    my @result2 = $tree->findnodes("/language/$language/widget[\@ID='$
+id']");
    print $_->textContent . "\n" for @result2;
}

    [download]
    لսႽ† ᥲᥒ⚪⟊Ⴙᘓᖇ Ꮅᘓᖇ⎱ Ⴙᥲ𝇋ƙᘓᖇ
[reply]
[d/l]
      Thanks choroba, I think I've "got it" now. I have updated my original reply.
[reply]

In Section Seekers of Perl Wisdom